after watching few videos on YouTube with exploding capacitors i decided to learn few things about the polarity and the voltage rates by trying to make a capacitor explode.
I made few test to try on then. First was the overvoltage test. I took a capacitor rated at 6.3V and i gave him 12V directly from a wall adapter. Nothing* happened however when i pulled it out from the protective box it was verry hot! So i straped a digital thermometer on the capacitorto monitor the temperatures and i put it on with the cables reversed. That was part of the second experiment with the reverse polarity. Quicly the capacitor jumped from the 25C (my room temperature) to 83C and then back down to 27C however no explosion! But after mesuring the capacitance with a multimeter the capacitor was completely dead. I couldn't mesure anything.
After this experiment i have the following questions.
- What are the perfect conditions for a capacitor to explode?
- What killed my capacitors? The extreme temperature, the voltage or the polarity?
- Should i be worried about the polarity of the power on my projects? (Except from ICs)
Few things for the capacitor:
- 100uF
- 6.3V
- -40 to +105 temperature
- Chinese el' cheapo